55 thoughts on “Open Forum!”

The anti-Trumpers don’t have anything to show for their efforts to try and prove collusion so now Rep. Tlaib, D-Mich., submitted a literal witch hunt resolution which calls on the House of Representatives to probe whether or not the president committed any offenses that rise to the level of impeachment.

These unethical anti-Trumpers are living in an Emotion-Based Reality, which is a delusional reality created by emotions run amok in the psyche. An unprovable Emotion-Based Reality will consume an individual and override provable reality.

These unethical anti-Trumpers are living in an Emotion-Based Reality, which is a delusional reality created by emotions run amok in the psyche. An unprovable Emotion-Based Reality will consume an individual and override provable reality.

Politely, sidlingly so, I suggest that you are not seeing the full picture. I assume this is so because you do not want to. So, it will have to be repeated and repeated and repeated.

The systemic, ‘progressive’, institutional and academic reaction to Trump is not irrational, but it does employ emotionalized tools to attack its perceived enemies. These ‘progressives’ (to use a too-general word) have their reasons.

The Jewish faction in America is terrified of what will become of the situation when Whites realize — as they may now be beginning to realize — what has been done and is being done to them, starting at the level of dilution of demographics (the importation of third-worlders en masse), and extending, of course, to the entire structure of ‘anti-white thinking’ and the attack against ‘whiteness’ that is now out in full force. If you begin to understand this about America, you will then be in a position to understand something similar in Europe.

Now, it does stand as possible that you can deny the whole issue, or sweep it away, but that would not be wise.

The New Demographic of America is a mixed demographic. Through BML and other groups they are now demanding rights. What stands in its way is the older, white demographic. Whether it is rational or irrational, they see themselves in a battle against American nativism. Certainly American nativists exist, and a wide range of different white American positions in relation to culture and demographics. The hinterlands, as they are called, seem to hold those with more will to reaction than the Coasts. In some sense it is the urban center vs the countryside, but the ‘countryside’ is more ‘original America’.

You, for example, and numerous others on this Blog, do not care what happens to America at a demographic level. You could not construct an argument against what is being perpetrated in the present! You would find yourself in a ‘moral dilemma’. Like a loose woman (if you will permit me the rather bold simile) you have no issue opening your legs to anyone when they beckon to you. You will raise anyone’s child. You will allow anyone in. You do demand — this is honorable — that they enter by the proper door and with permission. And you seem only to ask that they ‘act like an American’.

But they do not and they will not. Yet you hold to the idealism that it ‘should be so!’ and through that fail to see ‘what is really going on’. What is going on is your planned displacement. So, by agreeing to it — by having no capacity to resist it — you are part of it. In this sense your will combines with Progressive America’s will. In this way the ‘classic American conservative’ serves the Progressive America’s will and larger social definition.

Your *argument* about emotions and ‘Emotions Based Reality’ is not a tool to more clearly see ‘what is going on’, but one whose purpose is to keep yourself from seeing: and acting responsibly. You have pages and pages and pages and pages . . . of meaningless complaints. It is little more than whining because no accurate conclusions can be drawn from it. You simply complain about what is happening . . . while ideologically you participate in it.

Alizia,
You appear to be completely obsessed with this inherently racist anti-mixed demographic stuff, get some help with that obsession. You’re going to continue your free fall down the rabbit hole of racist delusions until you get it through that thick skull of yours that demographics of race and culture is an ever changing thing on planet earth and there’s no way to stop it. Mixed demographic is a fact of life on planet earth. There’s no such thing as a “pure” race or “pure” society, anyone that claims or implies otherwise is an ignorant fool and anyone who preaches that we should strive for that kind of ethnic purity is a racist fool.

I really should give you credit where credit is due; you did quite a number with your blurring and muddying of what I wrote by “piling on generalities, tangents, cosmic puzzles, dancing angels and navel-gazing exercises” #Jack Marshall. Have you completely stopped your narcissism psychotherapy sessions?

Sure, I understand what your view is, and also why you have it. I also understand why you pathologize my view. For you, it is something requiring therapy or, perhaps even, the Therapeutic State. The hyper-liberal state when it moves toward becoming a totalitarian state does indeed transform itself into the Therapeutic State. In the worst cases this means psychiatric prisons, gulags, et cetera. You do understand this, right? You do see what is happening around you, right?

These are not issues, questions or problems that I have ‘invented’ though. They come from a school of though — a philosophical school, an historical school, a school that considers political theory and other questions.

What I say — and what I said when I first came on — is that all of these questions really are ethical questions. I can make that case, and I do make that case.

You’re going to continue your free fall down the rabbit hole of racist delusions until you get it through that thick skull of yours that demographics of race and culture is an ever changing thing on planet earth and there’s no way to stop it.

The question is, of course, Did you choose this? Is Europe choosing its fate in this specific sense? Do they (does Europe or ‘the people of Europe’) have a right or an interest that could be called ‘ethical’ to be concerned about what is being done to them? Not as the ‘inevitability’ that you describe but as a result of state planners and cultural managers?

You may not have an interest in ‘changing’ what is happening, either in America or Europe, but my question to you is: Is your attitude really ethical? Is it moral? Or, as I think, is it irresponsible and have you arrived at it because you are weak and cowardly?

There’s no such thing as a “pure” race or “pure” society, anyone that claims or implies otherwise is an ignorant fool and anyone who preaches that we should strive for that kind of ethnic purity is a racist fool.

Perhaps you will see that this is your *interpretation* of what I am saying and what we say? To understand what we say you have to be *available* to hear it. It is different from what you have said here.

Again, you do more-or-less precisely what ‘progressives’ often do (what our friend Christ did): you rephrase something in hateful terms and then rail against that.

Alizia,
You appear to be completely obsessed with this inherently racist anti-mixed demographic stuff, get some help with that obsession…

… and so on.

If I may say so, responding in these terms is a pretty good example of the very problem she is pointing you towards. What you should be doing is asking “are her charges true?” (because, if so, they are very important). If necessary or convenient – for instance, if you have other pressing matters, as I have myself – you could break that down as “is this worth following up, and, if so, how can I find out one way or another?”. But you aren’t addressing the issues at all, you are just digressing into charging her with obsession – with as much time, trouble, effort and other cost as actually looking into it would take, and without considering whether her level and kind of focus would be appropriate, commensurate, for an accurate charge of that nature. Yet, without looking into it – even if you yourself lack the resources for doing that – you have no basis for concluding that she is over-reacting.

By the way, “… demographics of race and culture is an ever changing thing on planet earth and there’s no way to stop it. Mixed demographic is a fact of life on planet earth.” is jumping from an “is” to an “ought”. Death may well be inevitable – mors communis omnibus, and that – but that is no argument for quietism or fatalism, and the same applies for working to keep what “we” (however defined) value. Defeat is no argument for surrender; the important issue is whether surrender really does help. Compromise is never a value but only, at best, a tactic.

Safe choice. I only request that you notice the need to pathologize the concerns. A ‘rabbit hole’ means falling into something like a trap or an illusion, doesn’t it? Or a psychological sickness? It is a ‘maze’ in which a person can get lost. Or a labyrinth out of which there is no escape.

What I am trying to bring to your attention is just a few simple things:

One is that ‘whiteness’ has been vilified. I propose that the roots of this vilification can be examined and that it can be better understood.

Two is that social engineering as a para-democratic managerial strategy exists and that it, too, can be examined and thought about.

Three, that in our developing Liberal Totalitarianisms — a style or system of management that is common in the West — we are told that ‘defending white interests’ (the interests of white Europeans) is evil. Not just bad but evil, wrong, immoral, unethical, et cetera.

Four, that there are thoughtful, intelligent, fair-minded, concerned people who examine the 3 elements above (and other elements too) and try to arrive at a) understanding of what is going on and why and b) how they might oppose these ‘totalitarian’ para-democratic processes by asserting ‘sovereign rights’.

I would further draw to your attention that: though you may find my bold opinions dislikable and unsavory — that is your right — when we are de-platformed, demonetized, doxxed, fired, and otherwise have our rights undermined, that you too will face similar consequences when and if the ‘totalitarian liberal state’ does manage to assert itself in force.

One solution is to buckle under to *them*. That would mean to succumb to their coercion, both ideological and political and economic. I do suggest that doing that you wind up as a classical American Conservative: basically holding to the same conformist ideas as Progressives, and just slightly to the ‘right’ of center.

Finally, I only suggest looking into the material — the writings, the essays — of those who are developing these counter-currents of ideas. One, to better understand how others are thinking and thus to be better able to understand the present, but Two to see that these ideas are not without merit. (That is my opinion of course).

(But in respect and also in truth I do acknowledge that there are ‘rabbit holes’ in this life and in this world. They seem to be chosen by desperate people in desperate times. They can be located and they can be discussed).

Here is an example of what I mean, and what will be waiting for you, too, my dear friend. This is the beginning of the efforts to suppress and limit open conversation of these ideas: Jared Taylor banned from Europe and deported back to the United States.

Dear Friends in Stockholm, Turku, and around the world,

I am sorry to have to tell you that I cannot attend the Scandza Forum in Stockholm or the Awakening Conference in Turku, Finland, where I had been invited to give talks. Today, when I landed in Zurich for a connecting flight to Stockholm, Swiss border authorities told me I have been banned from Europe until 2021. I will spend the night at the airport, and tomorrow I will be deported.

The officer at passport control in Zurich airport had already stamped my passport and waved me through to my Stockholm flight when she called after me to come back. She stared at her computer screen and told me I had to wait. She didn’t say why. In a few minutes, a policeman arrived and told me there was an order from Poland that barred me from all 26 countries in the Schengen Zone.

He said the Poles did not give a reason for the ban, and he asked me what I had done. I said I give talks on immigration, and someone in Poland must not like them. “That makes me a political criminal,” I said.

The officer took me to an interrogation room and asked me about my travel plans. He went off to another room for a while and came back with a form for me to sign, saying that I understood I had been denied entry and was being sent back to the United States. After some more waiting, he fingerprinted me and took my photograph.

I don’t have the time to follow all that up myself, either. But that means that I can only say “that’s interesting”, not “that’s absurd and you’re absuedly obsessed” – because I don’t have anything to go on for that. Nor do you, with the difference that you actually are putting a lot of effort etc. into not doing the homework. And that’s what I’m pointing out. (There is a secondary point that it’s not inherently trivial, something not even worth wondering about – but, if it were, that would also be an argument against all your work in objecting.)

So accusing her of obsession is not the right way to address her claims. Look at its merits if you can, or deal with your other priorities if you must, but don’t rubbish what is an important matter on its face – and don’t rubbish its proponent. The second one is “choosing otherwise than going down a rabbit hole”, if rabbit hole it is, but you’re picking that last one.

I’m not sure who you think you’re quoting but it’s not me, are you paraphrasing?

P.M.Lawrence wrote, “So accusing her of obsession…”

With all due respect, two things about that statement:
1. Reread what I actually wrote about obsession.
2. Look up the definition for the word obsession and go back and read Alizia’s comments since December of 2015 (most of which you haven’t been part of) and see how many times she has been directly called out for her racism along these same lines. That’s not a rationalization, there is a pattern that you may not be aware of, make your own mind up based on the facts.

Now, P.M.Lawrence, if you want to chastise me for writing “have you completely stopped your narcissism psychotherapy sessions” I’ll stand up and take it like a man. I’m not going to justify what I wrote; that said, you stated that I should “look at its merits if I can”, how about you look at the merits of what my statement implies by looking up signs/symptoms of narcissism and make up your own mind based on the totality of Alizia’s comments over the years.

P.S. At least consider that you’re feeding and enabling an internet troll.

I thought I was neither quoting nor paraphrasing, but rather encapsulating a possible response (like yours but briefer, even if over-simplified, not as a straw man but as a talking point), without letting it seem like my own position. Perhaps you could call it a test position.

As for obsession, I’m not addressing whether she (AT) is obsessed at all (I’m too tied up at the moment to research anything in any depth, in fact too tied up to deal with a rather more important and still outstanding post about Palestinians). I’m just pointing out that all your effort bringing that out could more properly, more fittingly, be employed in looking at the substance or otherwise of her claims.

If she’s right, it would be hard to distinguish proper concern from obsession anyway, and might not be particularly helpful either. But if she’s wrong and you can show it, you would be better equipped to show her up. I don’t actually care if someone is the worst of racists or whatever, if that person happens to be right – even for stopped clock reasons. That’s because, in this context, I care more about alarm being called (correctly) than about that person’s inner worth; it’s not safe to dismiss cries of wolf, ever, even if false.

That means that “how about you look at the merits of what my statement implies by looking up signs/symptoms of narcissism and make up your own mind based on the totality of Alizia’s comments over the years” is absolutely irrelevant to the point I was trying to make to you, even if 100% correct. You should put your effort into investigating, if you’ve got the effort, and into nothing if you have no spare effort, but it is definitely misplaced effort to go all ad hominem on her at the length you do. (Oh, if I took your advice, that could only tell me about her, not about whether she is right.)

P.S. At least consider that you’re feeding and enabling an internet troll.

Huh? Are you suggesting that you are a troll? Because I’m interacting with you, here. I’m not interacting with AT at all, if you meant to tar her with that brush.

Okay, It’s been a very long weekend, I’m running short on civility, and I’ve had enough of this crap.

P.M.Lawrence wrote, “What you should be doing is asking “are her charges true?””, “you aren’t addressing the issues at all”, “is not the right way to address her claims. Look at its merits”, “I’m just pointing out that all your effort bringing that out could more properly, more fittingly, be employed in looking at the substance or otherwise of her claims.”

Give me a freaking break P.M.Lawrence! I’m writing in English, please stop reading in dumbass. Maybe it blew completely over your pompous head but I did address what appears to be her core content (the same thing she deflects to all the time) up front when I wrote “demographics of race and culture is an ever changing thing on planet earth and there’s no way to stop it. Mixed demographic is a fact of life on planet earth. There’s no such thing as a “pure” race or “pure” society…”. You don’t agree with it, I don’t give a damn but from what I can tell you haven’t directly addressed what I wrote in that regard, in fact you haven’t addressed what I wrote in the first two comments that started this little thread.

For your information; I’ve come to my overall opinions about Alizia as the result of a plethora of comment dissertations written by her, her words represent her here, nothing else. You don’t “like” how I’ve chosen to deal or not deal with Alizia’s comments, I get that but I just don’t give a damn what you think in that regard. You’ve voiced your opinion and I have voiced mine, we disagree; leave it at that and move on.

P.M.Lawrence wrote, “You should put your effort into investigating”

There you go again, a pompous Brit telling the American what he should be doing. I’m supposed to investigate every tangent and cosmic puzzle that Alizia spews forth? HA! Like I said before; if you want to go down Alizia’s rabbit holes, that’s your choice, I choose otherwise.

P.M.Lawrence wrote, “Huh? Are you suggesting that you are a troll? Because I’m interacting with you, here. I’m not interacting with AT at all, if you meant to tar her with that brush.”

That’s a cute response, completely over the top obtuse but cute all the same. Jack was spot on when he wrote back in March 2017 that you’re a “nit-picking but mordantly amusing Brit”.

Finally, I’m getting the impression that you’re either sitting on the fence in regards to Alizia’s underlying racist opinions or you actually agree with her (I can’t tell which); come out from hiding, you have an opinion about these things, you’re an adult, own it.

Been to the UK recently? Watched on Netflix any UK programs? Africans, Asians, Indians are everywhere, in positions of power and totally accepted as Brits. The fact that the UK has dealt fairly well with a (previously impossible) heterogeneous population relates specifically to their 18-19th century colonialism and imperialism with Asian and African nations (India is the best example. Unlike the French, who pillaged colonies and hunted with tribal chiefs and then left them with nothing, the Brits established governmental systems, especially India, with functioning governments which survived well after they were ‘freed’ and became part of the British Commonwealth). Because of the UK’s imperialism, citizens of these nation states became UK citizens, and way before the EU and Brexit, the number of Africans, Asians, and others were completely accepted by the Brits. The US is not in a similar position, being settled by white Europeans and supported in some places by African slaves. The great migration of the late 19th and early 20th century to the US was still primarily whites from varying countries (Ireland, e.g.), who had their problems but eventually were subsumed into American culture. Our two cognitive dissonance problems are our history of slavery and much more recent terrorism. We are not dealing well with either, What will be in our future is up for grabs: not only because we have the history of slavery, but because we were too young a nation to reach beyond our borders (excluding the Alamo) to create the kind of heterognenous mindset we need.

Been to the UK recently? Watched on Netflix any UK programs? Africans, Asians, Indians are everywhere, in positions of power and totally accepted as Brits.

I understand what you write. It is appreciated.

What I can say — a response — is that there is a growing movement of people who have come to feel that they — the original demographic in their own lands — did not choose these outcomes, that they were imposed on them, and that they are concerned, or in some cases very concerned, about what is happening, and what it means for them and their own demographic. Not only in Britain but in numerous countries of Europe.

Because I actively seek out their views and have studied them, yes, I do tend to agree with them. But not ‘absolutely’. And, my views are not structured around ‘racist ideology’. They are more bound up in notions of cultural and civilizational protection and preservation.

Yet I do understand that someone — you, some others perhaps — could argue against those concerns and apprehensions or dismiss them as irrelevant.

Whether I watch Netflix films or UK TV is not highly important, but in any case I do take your point. That these things have happened. I can refer you to plenty of people who have strong feelings about it. And many who oppose it. (That it happened, that it was ‘engineered’).

What I have made an effort to do as a contributor to this Blog is to attempt to bring the issues out into the open. I do that up to a 20% point. I hold back all the time, for respect for the environment (rather ‘parochially American’ and ‘conservative’). Myself, I live in a very (very) mixed culture, though I did grow up in the US and lived there for a relatively long time. Very very complex social dynamics. Not presently going very well. Will not get better soon.

I do not know what is ‘ultimately’ right and wrong or good and bad, nor necessarily what is desirable and undesirable. But I am aware that there is a rising movement (mostly it is an intellectual movement) that is concerned about what is going on culturally, religiously, demographically, in America, in Canada, in Australia and NZ, and in all the countries of Europe.

My way of seeing things is that even if you-plural absolutely oppose the ideas of the white nationalists (a valid and ethical position, in their view, and in my view), nevertheless it cannot do harm to know better how they think and what they think.

Unlike the French, who pillaged colonies and hunted with tribal chiefs and then left them with nothing, the Brits established governmental systems, especially India, with functioning governments which survived well after they were ‘freed’ and became part of the British Commonwealth).

Er, no. to both limbs of that.

The French gave their colonies an ultimatum on independence: stay within a neocolonialist framework, or we pull everything out, and they weren’t bluffing about everything. Only Guinea took the second option, losing even lamp fittings, and so incurred the fate you describe. The rest just got a new layer of local rulers to act as compradores but kept the “stuff” that the French had used to rule, only now in the hands of that new layer.

The British, however, used the trick a used car salesman used with a car with a defective transmission: parked it near the exit, properly lined up to drive straight out, so that problems would only emerge once it was out of the door and not the salesman’s problem.

You might want to compare and contrast the coup track record of French and British former colonies in the generation after independence.

Because of the UK’s imperialism, citizens of these nation states became UK citizens…

Crap. Before independence, they were British subjects with the same rights as everybody else if they happened to get to the U.K. (from which they were not barred then), but all they had afterwards was a strong preference for immigration with no automatic right of citizenship (and the rules got harder over time, though they started de facto lax). My own uncle faced consequences from this when he became a naval attache in Washington because his paperwork reflected his birth in what was then British Guiana, even though he hadn’t been there since returning to Scotland as a child and had only been abroad while doing war work and the like. His passport needed a “naturalised” overstamp. Or you might want to read up about Spike Milligan’s similar travails.

Allow me though, as a sign of desperation and creativity, to employ the Rafi Eitan Approach to Wiggling Out of Indefensible Conversational Error . . .

I am dealing with an intractable enemy (even his name, Zoltar, is frightening) of known rhetorical armaments (Weapons of Mass Rhetorical Disruption) and I was forced, literally forced, to swoop down on his Nuclear Facility and to try to annihilate it. Was this ethically wrong?

Well, I will leave that to the real ethicists among us! All I know is that I must win …

I simply refuse to take seriously anyone who resorts to a ‘whore’ metaphor in an ongoing discussion of ethics and morals involving a culture’s right to set and require obedience to some standards.

All cultures and countries have done this, even if those standards may tighten or loosen over time. Blue laws locking up people who don’t go to church fade, but immigration laws grew when the country stopped physically expanding. If you want to turn this on its head, how many other countries would want to accept unvetted immigrants in tens of thousands from our uneducated and unable to speak their language? How many could even handle the numbers of LEGAL immigrants we welcome every year, on a system already under strain?

What I would think best is to end the inflow. Illegal immigrants here now must participate in a more stringent process to become citizens. Sign up for classes and training programs etc. Also, include a large community service component as a cost for breaking the law… they are like on parole. Like parole, the citizenship process is halted and voided if they commit any major crime… it is also voided immediately if they help any more enter illegally. Anyone arriving after a date doesn’t get the option. People who don’t sign up and work diligently to become citizens lose the path too. This date is in the past as recent cheaters haven’t been here long enough to claim roots or children. This splits kids only if the parents don’t want to stay with kids. Orphaned born citizen kids can stay with citizens or relatives who adopt them.

Honestly, I remember an acquaintance who stayed in England past her Visa as a rock groupie, and she got deported. I cannot believe that there still aren’t countries keeping immigration under control. I suspect the dense population countries do, like Japan. Deportation for immigration crime was a teaching lesson, that seems to have been forgotten.

Allow me though, as a sign of desperation and creativity, to employ the Rafi Eitan Approach to Wiggling Out of Indefensible Conversational Error . . .

I am dealing with an intractable enemy (even his name, Zoltar, is frightening) of known rhetorical armaments (Weapons of Mass Rhetorical Disruption) and I was forced, literally forced, to swoop down on his Nuclear Facility and to try to annihilate it. Was this ethically wrong?

Well, I will leave that to the real ethicists among us! All I know is that I must win …

If the boss told you “you better watch what you say, because if you say it to the wrong person your face will be plastered all over the place,” would you think it was appropriate?
No, huh? What the heck is he talking about, right? 😡

If a coworker or neighbor who disliked you told you that you better not even look at him or he would “kick the s— out of you” would you think that was appropriate?
No again, eh? What’s his problem, right? 😣

If a coworker decided to hide some item of yours, you told the boss, the boss told him to cut the nonsense, and he then later physically attacked you for getting the boss involved, would you think that was appropriate?
I bet that’s a definite no, right? Are you kidding, right? 😮
Oh it gets better. What if you talked to the police about your threatening neighbor and were told “you just have to ignore him?”
What? 😠

How about if after your coworker attacks you, you complain to the boss, and the first words out of the boss’s mouth are, “what the heck did you do to make him so mad?”
What the f— is going on here, right? 😨

Sub in other kids for coworkers and neighbors, and parents and teachers for other authority figures, and welcome to the dark side of growing up in those good old days everyone says we’re so much better,

Now, who here agrees with the following statement:

It’s perfectly all right to do whatever you can get away with to anyone as long as you know you can get away with it.
No, eh? What the heck is that all about, right? 🤪 But I bet back in school if you saw someone you didn’t like in a hurry down the hall and maybe preoccupied your foot would just happen to be sticking out at just the right angle at just the right time to send that person on a full faceplant. 😲 Now that person’s been sent sprawling, you can plausibly claim it was an accident because you weren’t obvious about it, and if they fly at you, they’ll be the one to get in trouble. Score one for you.

Let’s try another one:
If someone’s name is even the least bit unusual, it’s perfectly OK to twist it into something embarassing or annoying and call them by that instead. That goes double for feminization of male names that lend themselves to it.
Not so much, huh? 😕 That’s actually pretty rude, correct? 😠 $10 says that way back when, particularly if you didn’t like someone, Barclay became Broccoli, Fuchs became F—s, Moreno became Moron, and so forth. If Clarence was undermasculine, or just not big enough to insist otherwise, he became Nancy, and if Paul was shy of being a Paul Orndorff I bet Paula was just something you couldn’t resist saying. After all, everyone’s got to learn to take a joke.

OK, and the last one for today:
It’s bad form to mock the physically disabled, but the mentally disabled are left in peace at the neurotypicals’ sufferance.
Hard pass, right?😱 WTF? But I bet when you were a kid you freely used the words “retard” or “retarded” when someone did something objectively or subjectively dumb, and if you did happen to encounter or see mentally handicapped kids, you and your friends had a good laugh about “the short bus,” the “tart cart,” or some other expression like that, maybe you openly called them “dummies” or something a whole lot worse. God forbid someone on the spectrum who looked normal but didn’t have the tools to fit in fell in with you, because you and your friends would be all over him with insults he wouldn’t quite grasp and ways to exploit his gullibility, until you had enough for the day. Hey, the mentally handicapped kids don’t understand the insults, so no harm, no foul, and those on the spectrum just have to learn to fit in.

Well? Any thoughts? No one ever writes this out, in fact we usually write the opposite, but who are we kidding?

3. Tina Tchen, former chief of staff for Michelle Obama (Now at the Southern Poverty Law Center), reportedly asked the Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx to transfer the investigation to the FBI, just before the charges were expunged.

Is it possible Michelle O had nothing to do with it? Absolutely. Tchen may know Smollett well and decided to act on her own behalf.

But it is also possible that the former president’s wife asked her to intercede. And I have to wonder why Tchen would want it transferred to the FBI, who could potentially bring a much nastier sentence to Smollett than a mere state crime could. Why would anybody want a federal investigation of a state matter given the greater potential consequences?

Unless, of course, you could control who in the FBI handled the case, and how it would be handled. And who is likely to know more people in the FBI hierarchy — Tchen or Michelle O? Kinda makes you say, “hmmm…”

“…I have to wonder why Tchen would want it transferred to the FBI…”
The explanation I’ve seen that makes sense is that the suggestion was made when they still believed Smollett, and figured the FBI would be able to lay the nasty sentence on his ATTACKERS.

JP;
Full disclosure: I retired after over 40 years in law enforcement, over 20 of which were spent in training assignments as an instructor and administrator. I still work as an independent trainer and consultant.
Hanlon’s razor indeed, bordering on professional malfeasance! I supervised many, many firearms training exercises including SWAT training, and NEVER did I nor any trainer I know utilize mug shots as targets in any way. As the article implies, there are photographic targets widely available commercially that utilize paid models to portray “good guys and bad guys” -and girls- in various poses and situations both threatening and non-threatening, to teach officers to recognize threats and respond accordingly. It is hard to imagine any training administrator in this century so ethically tone-deaf as to permit the use of mug shots for target practice, much less endorse it.
Cheers!

“Lent (Latin: Quadragesima, ‘Fortieth’) is a solemn religious observance in the Christian liturgical calendar that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends approximately six weeks later, before Easter Sunday. The purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer for Easter through prayer, doing penance, mortifying the flesh, repentance of sins, almsgiving, and denial of ego.

There are traditionally 40 days in Lent; these are marked by fasting, both from foods and festivities, and by other acts of penance. The three traditional practices to be taken up with renewed vigour during Lent are prayer (justice towards God), fasting (justice towards self), and almsgiving (justice towards neighbours). However, in modern times, observers give up partaking in vices and often invest the time or money saved in charitable purposes or organizations.

In addition, some believers add a regular spiritual discipline, to bring them closer to God, such as reading a Lenten daily devotional. Another practice commonly added is the singing of the Stabat Mater hymn in designated groups. Among Filipino Catholics, the recitation of Jesus Christ’ passion, called Pasiong Mahal, is also observed. In some Christian countries, grand religious processions and cultural customs are observed, and the faithful attempt to visit seven churches during Holy Week in honor of Jesus Christ heading to Mount Calvary.”

I bring up Lent because I want to use it to segway into an explanation, and even though I’m at most agnostic towards the existence of God, I can look at certain practices the church has come up with and attempt to understand and respect them as generally good, and with specific beneficial outcomes, Also, with Easter coming up, it’s as good a time to mention it as any.

Lent is effective, in no small part because of psychology. The reason New Years resolutions fail is because, generally, people set grandiose unattainable expectations and fail to set goals. Lent is more subtle… It tells you to make a change, maybe just a small one, and make it for 40 days, and generally, with small changes over time, these things cease to be tasks and start to be habits. Give up Netflix for 40 days, and see if you actually renew it at the end of the month. Maybe you’ve learned to live without it.

Which is the first step in explaining my prolonged absence. Normally, in my kind of position, work is seasonal, and you put in 100 hour work weeks when you have to, but more often than not, I could set up a cot in my office, which might have explained the ungodly amount of time I spent commenting here during working hours. Almost a year ago now, my company switched over payroll systems from one of the most clunky DOS-based systems to a modern web based system. It was an unmitigated disaster.

I couldn’t justify spending time, frankly, any time, on here while people weren’t getting paid, or were getting paid for the wrong amounts, or were getting paid for an entire department, and were missing mortgage payments. I personally hand-wrote out 1200 cheques over a three month period to offset that bullshit. I hated every minute of it, I swear I could write a book.

4 months from the start of that, we were basically on track. But a whole lot of things had ceased to be habits, and I had made new habits. I actually popped in here a couple times, especially when the topics seemed almost tailored specifically for me, but I never quite pulled the pin and wrote the comment. At some point there was this little guilty feeling: “I should go back, I miss those guys, but shit… I feel crappy about ghosting on them”.

Regardless, that was an exceptionally long-winded way of saying I’m going to be back. And hi.

No automated payroll systems roll out right. A friend who’s an aide still isn’t getting paid correctly since August. And the office mysteriously keeps losing faxes. My jobs went badly too, but they have thankfully faded in memory.

I find Lenten resolutions easier than New Year, potato chips was a good one for one year, because it has an end. Trouble is coming up with a good one can be a challenge, I’ve already stopped the chips and such. Snacks like a cup of grapefruit or some peanuts don’t need to be removed. WB

One thing I miss from growing up Catholic was it was almost always one season or another and there was always an impending holy day to get ready for or bid adieu to. It made for a full rhythm to the year. Of course, living in Miami we had no actual seasons, just hot and hotter.

… and specifically, this quote: “There are days now — a lot of them — when I open the up the homepages of the New York Times and the Washington Post in the morning, scroll down a bit, and have the odd sensation that I’m reading the organ of an opposition party, with one headline after another trumpeting the moral depravity of the administration.

This is notable because Bai has been one of those harping on the administration since it started. Yet Bai concludes that the media does NOT owe Trump an apology, because he lies routinely in a way other presidents have not…Not only does Trump mislead, habitually, about knowable facts, but he does so with a very specific intent — to make it his word against ours, to persuade some sizable plurality of the electorate that reality is a squishy thing.

From my perspective, Bai gets part of it right: If we act as Mueller did, impervious to provocation, monastically focused on truth and perspective, we might restore the credibility we badly need.

But curiously, he essentially blames Trump for the shocking failure of the news media in covering this story. Thoughts welcome.

Bai does not discriminate between what he considers lies, hyperbole, or opinion statements made by Trump cannot be considered all lies. If we held all ad copy and sales presentations to the same standard or all those that state that Medicare for all is doable to the same standard as Trump every one of these could be called liars. It is sales puffery and opinion not lies.

This is merely a backhanded condemnation of Trump and his administration.

I’ll only post one link and for those so enthralled, they can do more. This gentleman, Mr. Lynch, bought his home in 2012 and it was in a fair bit of disrepair when he acquired it, after years of a rotating cadre of renters. Neighbors were relieved that Mr. Lynch would be an owner/occupant as they thought the run down home would start to see some maintenance and improvement; but within 6 months to a year, Mr. Lynch had not addressed the maintenance issues that would draw the ire of the city. In 2013, the City essentially locked Mr. Lynch out of his home until it was brought up to a habitable state. Since 2013, Mr. Lynch has not lived in his home and the deterioration of the home has only gotten worse, as homes will do when left unattended. Any attempt to “fix” something is done on a shoestring budget and is lipstick on a pig. Utilities have been turned off & on & off again. The home went into foreclosure but Mr Lynch was able to redeem the mortgage.

In November of 2018 the city moved forward with condemning the house as a nuisance property and committing to demolition of the house at the city’s expense. Mr. Lynch appealed this order of demolition and the appeal began on January 16, 2019. To hear Mr. Lynch speak of his plight, the unattended home had recently been inhabited by vandals who stripped the copper pipes, but I’m not clear if they did that before or after the pipes burst because the heat was cut-off. Anyway, flood damage to the home resulted in much mold and other dangerous conditions. He is constantly applying for aid and grants through utilities and government programs and he relies heavily on the charity of his church community. People have tried to help him and he’s just one more free service away from curing everything.

The appeal on Jan 16 went for 4 hours and was continued to another session in January….but it hasn’t taken place yet. Mr. Lynch could not attend meeting after meeting and even missed without explanation at least 1 hearing. Then came the house fire. The nuisance property caught fire 2 days before the next scheduled hearing in mid-March. Neighbors suggest Mr. Lynch started the fire to collect on the insurance that was still good on his property. Mr. Lynch vehemently denies such an idea. The neighbors tell tales of woe due to the property and how it has negatively affected them. For 6 years they’ve complained about the property and his ability to care for it and the emotion shows in their eyes.

With the news of the fire in hand, the building board of appeals commission stayed further action on hearing the appeal – it would be bad form to demolition the house with investigators actively trying to ascertain the cause of the fire inside. The stay is until the investigation wraps up. Meanwhile, city staff are going back to open a new case file on the property. This time instead of condemning the property as a nuisance, they will condemn the property as dangerous, which will likely give the city more authority and restrict the rights of Mr. Lynch to appeal. It’s quite a saga.

There are plenty of ethics points to make on this, but they’re all fairly obvious. Power of government should be used sparingly. Even sparsely used, the action of government, in those circumstances when justified, can still appear to be heavy handed. Homeowner negligence is no joke and it affects your neighbors. This home has attracted vandals, vagrants, flooding, disease, and now fire. The homeowner appears to be a leach on charity and free government cheese.

As of Tuesday (March 26th) at least half a million new felons have been created from otherwise law-abiding American citizens, by a regulatory agency under political pressure from the president. This was the date the “bump-stock ban” came into force. (disclaimer: I don’t own a bump-stock, though I have fired one).
This was done by creating a tortured, convoluted, dishonest, and extra-legislative definition to enable the ATF to call a plastic rifle stock a “machine gun”, in direct contradiction of the legal definition that was established in law decades ago, and upheld by several previous logical ATF reviews that even Obama could not see a way clear to contravene.
Estimates are that there are at least 500,000+ of these in circulation (maybe up to 1.5 million); It’s been reported that fewer than 1,000 have been turned in. This is not a minor concern. Since the agency still could not assume the authority to change the penalty, that remains at up to 10 years imprisonment and/or a $250,000 fine…the same as unregistered possession of such as an actual heavy machine gun or rocket launcher.
Setting aside that this seems a solution in search of a problem (only one significant crime has ever been [maybe] committed using these devices), perverting the process from the proper legislative procedure of setting legal definitions of crimes, and the appropriate punishments for violations, especially in light of such severe potential consequences in this case, should concern anyone who doesn’t want the meanings of laws to vacillate at the whims of whoever is in charge at any given moment, or unelected bureaucrats.

Sure, like so many firearms regulations it’s mainly “do-something-ism”, and just advances the camel a bit further into the tent.

Besides needlessly criminalizing citizens, the sheer dishonesty of the whole process doesn’t provide much confidence that logic, law, due process, constitutionality, etc. won’t be similarly corrupted to attack the next target, like AR type rifles, semi-autos in general, as you suggest, or any other disfavored item or behavior.

I missed this the other day since I had cataract surgery, but it seems the latest lifeline in the ongoing attempt to dethrone Trump and gather some viable results is Mueller’s “Unsealed indictments.” These have been peppered into various hovels in the bluest regions of our country. Is this more wishful thinking or a legitimate strategy?